Martin Brundle makes ‘unhappy’ Lando Norris observation with potential trigger highlighted

Lando Norris and Martin Brundle.

Martin Brundle believes Lando Norris seemed “a little unhappy” at Spa over the weekend, wondering if the team orders from Hungary were still a part of his thinking.

Norris was ordered to move aside for long-time race leader Oscar Piastri in the closing stages in Budapest after a strategic call from McLaren went in his favour at the final stops, with the British driver admitting at Spa-Francorchamps days later he’s “not felt too proud” about the way he was seen to have “kind of clouded over” his team-mate’s maiden Grand Prix victory.

Martin Brundle: Lando Norris ‘appeared a little unhappy’ at Spa-Francorchamps

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Alongside that, Norris acknowledged it was “such a stupid thing” from his perspective to have not allowed Piastri back past immediately, given the McLaren drivers were free to race until the chequered flag.

After a P5 finish in Belgium, former Formula 1 driver Brundle posited the theory that the events of the Hungaroring hadn’t escaped his thoughts entirely over the weekend.

“Lando Norris appeared a little unhappy about something all weekend despite solid performances, and I wondered if the events of Budapest the weekend before were still playing on his mind,” Brundle wrote in a column for Sky Sports.

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Norris had started fourth on Sunday but lost three places at La Source after running wide, making it a second race in a row where he lost places at the start.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes those moments are “marginal” from Norris’ perspective, but looking more widely, he will look at both drivers to see how they can both perform to the best of their abilities for the remainder of the season.

“These kinds of situations, they’re always very marginal,” Stella told media including PlanetF1.com after the race.

“I think Lando got a little distracted from what was happening on the inside and ran out of track.

“It’s marginal things like this, I think, requires little adjustments here and there.

“Certainly, we work with Lando, like we work with Oscar, to try and see all the opportunities in which we can improve individually, but also collaborate better, to either be more prepared or to use better our abilities and talents.

“I think it doesn’t necessarily change our attitude, but definitely gives us some elements to analyse as to how some of these missed opportunities manifest themselves.

“Like for Lando, for instance, he looks like there’s statistically some opportunities that tend to happen in the early stages of the race, so we need to check whether this is for a reason, or it’s just random.

“But like any other athlete or any other driver, I think Lando himself will talk to the team, we like to think ‘what can I do better?’ To make sure we capitalise on the good work we are doing.

“I think he was in a good starting position still, but then once we lost the position at the start with this low deg and difficult overtaking, we definitely made our life difficult.”

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